At the Newton County Board of Commissioner (BOC) work session Jan. 12, Interim County Manager Lloyd Kerr recommended that some of the county's recycling, or convenience centers be consolidated to save the county almost $100,000.
“We ran some rough numbers,” Kerr told The Covington News later, “and we thought we could save about $90,000. It would help us because we wouldn’t have to have quite so many trucks and equipment providing service to two centers instead of one.”
One of the centers Kerr suggested that should be closed was on McGiboney Road.
Kerr told The News, “McGiboney is probably the heaviest used center we have. It’s in a bad location. It sits in a hole and is next to a busy intersection. There’s nowhere to expand it and it’s difficult to get in to.”
Kerr said that if the BOC didn’t want to consolidate the two centers – McGiboney Road and Cook Road – it might consider prohibiting the acceptance of large items, such as yard waste, old furniture or other large pieces of trash.
Over the Christmas break, when the convenience centers were closed, residents dumped a large amount of trash outside the center’s closed gates, which led to traffic problems. Eventually, the Newton County Sheriff’s Office had to send deputies out to direct traffic around the trash bags spilling into the road. [See story[See story “Trash piles up outside recycling center,” at http://www.covnews.com/section/1/article/200428/]
At the work session, District 4 Commissioner J. C. Henderson said he thought it would be important to get feedback from the community about the closing of any of the convenience centers.
Because the BOC was meeting in a work session, no action on the recommendation could be taken.
Kerr made the following recommendations to close the centers on:
- Highways 212 and 162 at 2010 Highway 212
- Hazelbrand Road at 11585 Hazelbrand Road
- Dial Mill Road at 325 Dial Mill Road
- Piper/Highway 36 at 10545 Highway 36
- McGiboney Road at 518 McGiboney Road
He recommended these centers remain open:
- Bypass/Flat Shoals Road at 11575 Covington Bypass Road
- Stewart Volunteer Fire Department at 14645 Highway 36
- Stone Road at 70 Stone Road
- Oak Hill Road at 112 Oak Hill Road
- Adams Circle at 2010 Adams Circle
